2000/07/31 by Kurt Broderix, Kamal K. Bhattacharya, Andrea Cavagna +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech #cond-mat.dis-nn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.85.5360
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5360 (2000) · 4 RevTeX pages, 6 eps figures. Revised version
arxiv created 2001/04/09 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to generate an ensemble of saddles of the potential energy of a Lennard-Jones liquid. Classifying all extrema by their potential energy u and number of unstable directions k, a well defined relation k(u) is revealed. The degree of instability of typical stationary points vanishes at a threshold potential energy, which lies above the energy of the lowest glassy minima of the system. The energies of the inherent states, as obtained by the Stillinger-Weber method, approach the threshold energy at a temperature close to the mode-coupling transition temperature Tc.